From FactCheck.org:

It’s not Bush’s plan, and it wouldn’t cut benefits.

Summary

A Kerry ad claims “Bush has a plan to cut Social Security benefits by 30 to 45 percent.” That’s false. Bush has proposed no such plan, and the proposal Kerry refers to would only slow down the growth of benefits, and only for future retirees. It was one of three possible “reform models” detailed by a bipartisan commission in 2001.

The ad also says nothing about what Kerry would do to address the troubled state of Social Security finances. Unless taxes are increased, the system’s trustees say currently scheduled benefits would have to be cut 32%

Read the full article.

We’ve talked about this before, but a recent rash of phishing attempts that I’ve received have prompted me to bring it up again. “Phishing” is an attempt by some unauthorized person to get you to voluntarily surrender sensitive information. While phishing cons have been around forever, the attacks have taken a new electronic form using email. Here’s how it works:

You’ll get an official-looking email from your bank (or eBay, or some other company with which you might do business. As one of the largest US banks, Citibank has been a popular target.) When you open the email, it directs you to an online form under the pretenses of preventing loss of your personal information, or updating their records, or verifying your PIN, etc. The point is, everything looks official — even after you click the link and go to an address that looks correct, too. (It might be something like http://citibank.bankrecords.com/account_update.html). The problem is, the message you received and the form that you fill out aren’t owned by Citibank (or any other legitimate entity.) And when you fill out the form, you essentially surrender all the information necessary for someone to steal your identity, a problem that could cost you thousands of dollars and years to correct.

Here’s the bottomline: No company that you do business with will contact you (unsolicited) via email to ask for things like your SSN, pin number, or even your Internet login information; they already have it. If you receive a request like this that you haven’t initiated, pick up the phone and call them.

It’s interesting how things travel on the Internet. I received an article today that was written by Jeremiah Denton, a retired Navy Admiral and Senator from Alabama. If you’ve got a minute, you can read a quick biography here. Without going into too much detail, here are some highlights of Jeremiah’s life that might give you some perspective:

In June 1965, he was assigned to Attack Squadron 75 on the USS Independence flying the Grumman A-6 Intruder. On 18 July 1965, while pulling up after leading a bombing attack on enemy installations near Thanh Hoa, he was shot down and captured by North Vietnamese troops. While held prisoner, Denton became the first American subjected to four years of solitary confinement. In 1966, during a television interview by the North Vietnamese and broadcast on American television, Denton gained national attention when, while being questioned, he blinked his eyes in Morse code, repeatedly spelling out the covert message “T-O-R-T-U-R-E”. During his captivity he frequently served as the senior American military officer in numerous camps in and around Hanoi.

In November 1980, Denton became the first retired flag officer ever elected to the U.S. Senate.

Now, the reason I bring all of this up…

I received an article written by Admiral Denton that appeared in the Mobile (Alabama) Register on March 10, 2004. In it, the Admiral addressed his concerns about John Kerry running the country; concerns that he expresses in a clear, concise, truthful, and relevant manner. You see, Admiral Denton was a Democrat who has switched parties. He also served in the Senate with Kerry. Beyond his criticism of Kerry, he speaks eloquently about how we are engaged in the battle for the “soul of America” and how many politicians today seem bent on “abandoning our historical effort to be “one nation under God” in favor of becoming “one nation without God,” with glaringly unfavorable results.” Stop whatever you’re doing today and read the full text here.

Now, while researching the origins of this email, I was reminded of another issue related to the good Admiral that I could hardly believe (but have subsequently found to be true.) The Democratic-controlled California Assembly refused to allow Admiral Denton speak on the floor and thusly cancelled any Independence Day celebration this year. Read an account of the situation on WorldNetDaily or the memo written by California Assemblyman John Campbell.

With only a few weeks left, I think it’s important to re-visit the whole candidate issue. My liveliest political conversations often come at the hands (expense of?) my friend, Tom Gasta, who — though often diametrically opposed to whatever I think — normally ends a conversation with, “I don’t think we’re all that different on the big issues.” I suspect he’s right. The problem, of course, is the definition of the “big issues”.

I’ve tried several of the candidate selectors available online, some good, some awful. I think my favorite is the one at President Match. After going through the entire questionairre, you’ll then have the opportunity to see side-by-side comparisons of the candidates. After completing this exercise, I can see why the Nation is so divided on this election. The problem is (at least, this is what I think the problem is…) that very few of us see things as black and white. While we might favor a stance on one issue, we could easily hold the opposite stand on another. And many of these things we might “somewhat support” or “somewhat oppose” and the candidate “strongly supports” or “strongly opposes”. So, in the end, although tools like these are helpful, we’re left to our own devices to make a decision. And when we get to that point, all of the intangibles that can’t be articulated or measured swing into play. Issues like morality, character, principles.

I’m interested to know how you scored, so be sure to let me know. In the interest of full disclosure, I was 51% Bush, 39% Kerry. But I can easily see after viewing the comparison that a couple of nudges in either direction on just a few issues would sway the results. Interesting…

One of the things our customers get from us is the truth. At times, this puts us in a delicate position of having to disagree with something they might feel strongly about, or cause us to recommend something they haven’t thought of. I think it’s one of our greatest strengths: we never sit down at the table to play the role of the “Yes Man”. I was reminded of this when I heard this story about one of America’s great space heroes, Max Faget.

Paraphrasing commentator Andrew Chaiken, on NPR:

Every great achievement in space begins in the mind of an engineer on Earth. Last week, SpaceShipOne captured the $10 million X Prize because of some brilliant out-of-the-box thinking by its designer, Burt Rutan. More than 40 years ago, NASA’s brilliant out-of-the-box thinker was a small, wiry engineer named Max Faget. He was never a household name, even at the height of the space race. But his genius was crucial to NASA’s space triumphs.

In 1958, aerospace engineers were struggling with the biggest problem of space flight: protecting the craft and the astronauts from intense heat of re-entry. It would have to withstand temperatures hotter than the surface of the Sun, if anyone could figure out how to build such a craft. Most scientists favored a sleek needlenose design to minimize air resistance. But Faget had a different idea. He had heard researcher Harvey Allen talk about a ship with a blunt shape, allowing it to slam into the atmosphere, creating a shock wave that would deflect most of the heat away from the spacecraft. Allen’s idea went completely against conventional wisdom, but Faget knew it was right.

When the experts gathered for a conference in March, 1958 to discuss needlenose designs, they got an earful from Max Faget.

“You’re all wrong,” Faget said. “If you’re serious about putting a man in space anytime soon, a blunt body is the only way to go.” His outspokenness helped convince the skeptics and he designed the spacecraft for project Mercury with a blunt heatsheild. It was anything but sleek. But Faget’s Mercury capsule successfully carried the first American astronauts into space, inlcuding Alan Shepard, John Glenn, and Gordon Cooper. Faget went on to design the Apollo command module that carried astronauts from the Earth to the Moon and back. He even led the early design of the reusable space shuttle. But Mercury was always his proudest accomplishment.

Max Faget, Designer of the Mercury capsule and Apollo command module and clearly nobody’s “Yes Man”, died on Saturday at the age of 83. Here’s to you, Max.